Genovesa Island
Today was a pretty fantastic day. The early arriving to the island of Genovesa gave us a nice show of the skilled Captain and his crew maneuvering the ship through a very small channel at the entrance of the caldera.
The light was very nice and the birds started to make their long, daily journey to the sea for foraging.
Many of the red-footed boobies decided to have a closer look of our ship, since as soon as we dropped anchored, they came and “checked us out,” hanging out on the ship’s exteriors hand rails for a while.
Shortly after breakfast we headed to a lovely beautiful beach name Darwin bay, with as many birds as the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds.” In here, the population of great frigatebirds and red-footed boobies has grown tremendously, and their black-shaded bodies filled the sky’s view during the most of our visit.
One of the highlights of the day was to see the frigatebirds stealing the food and nesting materials from the red-footed boobies. It doesn’t sound quite right, but this system has been developed for millions of years as an adaptation of the frigatebirds due their incapability to get their feathers wet. There has been observations of frigatebirds swooping down to within a foot of the water and flick its head down and up in a fraction of a second, plucking up its prey (small fish and squid) in a perfectly timed maneuver. Only its beak will touch the water, for it must avoid severely wetting its plumage, else it might become waterlogged and drown. Frigate birds have only a small preen gland that is insufficient to oil and waterproof their feathers fully, so it has been only logical for the frigate birds to develop such an incredible ability for flying and find the rest of their food by developing a system that has been named “kleptoparasitism.”
Such a great walk in the morning could only leaded us to a nice snorkeling outing with lots of bright and colorful fish found along the rim of the caldera.
My highlight was definitely to see a flounder moving along the rocks with nice patterning on its body. It landed on a dark rock making the shape of the fish even more evident.
The afternoon was not less than succesful. Eagerly, we made our way to Prince Philip steps (named after Prince Philip of England) to encounter the challenge of finding a diurnal-behavior owl. We did it! Only a few meters after our landing, a short-eared owl was found performing a rather erratic behavior. It was clearly looking for its afternoon meal (a storm petrel big Mac, wrap to take, please!) After a few jumps here and there, it decided to take a break for a while. It stayed still for a while, giving each one of the groups time to see it on detail and a great view of it beautiful colors.
Today was a pretty fantastic day. The early arriving to the island of Genovesa gave us a nice show of the skilled Captain and his crew maneuvering the ship through a very small channel at the entrance of the caldera.
The light was very nice and the birds started to make their long, daily journey to the sea for foraging.
Many of the red-footed boobies decided to have a closer look of our ship, since as soon as we dropped anchored, they came and “checked us out,” hanging out on the ship’s exteriors hand rails for a while.
Shortly after breakfast we headed to a lovely beautiful beach name Darwin bay, with as many birds as the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds.” In here, the population of great frigatebirds and red-footed boobies has grown tremendously, and their black-shaded bodies filled the sky’s view during the most of our visit.
One of the highlights of the day was to see the frigatebirds stealing the food and nesting materials from the red-footed boobies. It doesn’t sound quite right, but this system has been developed for millions of years as an adaptation of the frigatebirds due their incapability to get their feathers wet. There has been observations of frigatebirds swooping down to within a foot of the water and flick its head down and up in a fraction of a second, plucking up its prey (small fish and squid) in a perfectly timed maneuver. Only its beak will touch the water, for it must avoid severely wetting its plumage, else it might become waterlogged and drown. Frigate birds have only a small preen gland that is insufficient to oil and waterproof their feathers fully, so it has been only logical for the frigate birds to develop such an incredible ability for flying and find the rest of their food by developing a system that has been named “kleptoparasitism.”
Such a great walk in the morning could only leaded us to a nice snorkeling outing with lots of bright and colorful fish found along the rim of the caldera.
My highlight was definitely to see a flounder moving along the rocks with nice patterning on its body. It landed on a dark rock making the shape of the fish even more evident.
The afternoon was not less than succesful. Eagerly, we made our way to Prince Philip steps (named after Prince Philip of England) to encounter the challenge of finding a diurnal-behavior owl. We did it! Only a few meters after our landing, a short-eared owl was found performing a rather erratic behavior. It was clearly looking for its afternoon meal (a storm petrel big Mac, wrap to take, please!) After a few jumps here and there, it decided to take a break for a while. It stayed still for a while, giving each one of the groups time to see it on detail and a great view of it beautiful colors.
